Health Insurance News

In just a couple of months, some 13 million Australians are going to be looking at their private health insurance premiums to decide what cover they want moving forward. Insurance providers have been spending the later part of last year working out their insurance premium proposals to get approved by the Australian government. You may also know that these premiums are set to take affect on April 1, 2018.

Planning for the future is never easy, but if you have the right tools in place, it can make weathering any periods of uncertainty a little smoother. Those tools, are of course, your talented employees! However, obtaining and retaining top talent is easier said than done these days.

There are over 2 million businesses in Australia and over 90 per cent of these are non-employing, micro or small businesses, Treasury data shows. And these fast moving, small organisations are driven by their most valuable asset - their people.

People between the ages of 20 and 29 are the least likely to hold a health insurance policy for both hospital and general treatment, Australian Prudential Regulation Authority data shows. Plus, over the September quarter, almost 9,000 Australians aged from 25 to 29 dropped their cover (the largest decrease of any age group).

There's a problem with Australia's private health insurance cover. In fact, only 55 per cent of the population have insurance covering general treatment, according to the latest Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) statistics.

The average Australian health insurance premium has increased by between 4.8 and 6.2 per cent every year since 2010, Department of Health data shows. While the vast majority of consumers still see great value in their health insurance, it's understandable that some are put off by these continuous price increases.

Over 13.5 million Australians have some form of private health insurance, Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) data shows. That's well over half the population, a coverage level far better than many other advanced nations like New Zealand, the UK and Ireland.

Productivity growth in Australia averaged 1.8 per cent a year on average from 2010 to 2016, Treasury data shows. This gradual rate leaves room for business profits to stall and for the incomes of Australian workers to fall behind the cost of living.

Employee health is big business all over the world. In fact, a RAND Corporation study from 2014 found that 75 per cent of US businesses had, or were intending to implement employee wellness initiatives. Such movements are rapidly gaining popularity in Australia too.

The private health insurance industry is committed to keeping premiums as low as the market permits. After all, doing so is in everyone's best interests - to guarantee the sustainability of the industry and ensure that insurance policies remain affordable for all Australians.